I already taught you (in how play E on the uke, here) to play the chord with a barre—that is, one finger across the strings. (VERY important).

The trouble is that it’s really hard to barre strings 4, 3, 2, and NOT accidentally close off string 1 as well.

So if you shouldn’t close off string one accidentally…

What if we closed it off on purpose?

Today we'll close off string 1 on purpose–but differently.

Stick with me now.

When you play an E “by the book” (4442, frets ceiling to floor), strings 4 and 1 actually play the same note (a G, if you're curious).

And…string 1 is what makes the chord so hard to form.

And…if string duplicates the note of string 4…

(you see where we're going, don't you!)

What if…we eliminate string 1?

We've still got the other three strings ringing out, playing the same notes you'd have. But we eliminate the trouble spot.

Here's how to do it:

We're going to stick with the barre–one finger across all four strings at fret 4.

Now remember: you can't barre string 1 or it stops being an E chord! You can do a very tricky dip with your barre finger to allow string one to ring out (where you've used another finger to cover fret 2) — yikes!